Big Year 2017

Sunday, 10 January 2016

I always go birding on the first day of the year but this
year I decided to turn it into a big day. I even came up with a catchy name for it ‘First
Day Big Day’. I spent the last week scouting
and planning my route, and worked out that I should be able to get forty
species pretty easily. Fifty would need
a bit more effort and sixty would need some luck. So I set a goal for fifty-five species. I was able to pinpoint a few of the rarities still
on the island but I foresaw problems with the Eurasian Marsh Harrier.It had
suddenly switched from the northern side of the island, the only place where I
had ever seen it, to the eastern side where it was first sighted but where I had
tried unsuccessfully to see it many times. One reason for this is that the best place to
see the Harrier is on a private swamp which I do not have access to. I will also have this problem with the West Indies Whistling Duck, which seems
to have taken up residence on the island. Another bird which proved difficult to
pinpoint was the Grey Heron and for
safety reasons I decided to skip the most likely location where this bird may
have been seen, that is Long Pond. Long Pond would also have been a sure bet
for the two night herons but safety comes first.

D Day

The day for action started surprisingly just ten minutes
into the new day when I registered my first bird, a Common Ground Dove1, no doubt affected by the New Year’s
celebratory fireworks.I woke up at 5am
later that morning, made breakfast then packed snacks and water into my trusty
cooler bag. My camera bag was packed
from the day before, card emptied and installed and battery fully charged. I was out the door at 5:30am making my way to
my first stop, the gas station. From the
gas station with the sun just peeking over the horizon I made my way to my
first birding sight, the local recycling center and landfall in the Parish of
St. Thomas.

I tallied six species at that location which included the
bird I really went to see a Great Blue
Heron2. The others were Cattle
Egret3, Common Gallinule4,
Bananaquit5, Barbados Bullfinch6 and Carib Grackle7.My next stop would be Redland where I hoped
to add my first duck to the count but as I was passing a small catchment of
water at the side of the road not too far from the landfill, something caught
my eye. I noticed some birds wadding in
the mud and water. I stopped and was
able to add Wilson’s Snipe8,
Least Sandpiper9 and Grey Kingbird10 to my count.
I finally arrived at Redland at 6:33am
and was happy to find that the female Lesser
Scaup11 and the two male Green-winged
Teals12 were still there. Other birds added to the count at Redland were
Blue-winged Teal13, Grassland Yellow Finch14 and
Shiny Cowbird15.

Green Heron

It was at this point that I got the belated news that the
Marsh Harrier was sighted about 20 minutes earlier, at the private location I
spoke of above. On monitoring the
Harrier sightings over the few weeks it was around, it seems to have a routine,
so I knew that it was probably on its way to my next stop, Golden Grove, but
the fact that the news was almost a half hour late and I was about twenty
minutes away my chances of seeing it there was very slim. I arrived at Golden Grove at 7:30am and waited
for an hour and ten minutes. While there,
I added eleven species to my checklist. There was Snowy
Egret16, Little Blue
Heron17, Green Heron18,
Sora19, Solitary20 and Stilt21 Sandpipers, Greater22 and Lesser Yellowlegs23, Rock Pigeon24,
Eurasian Collared Dove25, Zenaida Dove26 and
Green-throated Carib27 but no Marsh Harrier. It was at this point that I reached for my
lunch bag which I so carefully packed before leaving in the morning, only to
realize it was missing. I forgot it at
home!

Black-whiskered Vireo

Anyway my next stop was at Bushy Park where someone feeds a
large group of Eared Doves28
but I also saw a Caribbean Elaenia29.Onto Congo Road Swamp for sandpipers, where I
added Semipalmated Plover30
and Sandpiper31, Ruddy Turnstone32, Great33
and Little Egrets34.Scaly-naped Pigeon35 was seen at Woodbourne Shorebird
Refuge while a search of Inch Marlow and Oistins turned up a single Spotted Sandpiper36 and
nineteen Royal Terns37. I completed my morning with a short visit to Graeme
Hall Nature Sanctuary and added Yellow
Warbler38 and Black-whiskered
Vireo39 then headed home for a bite to eat and a short rest at
about 11:30.

American(L) and Eurasian(R) Wigeons

For the afternoon half of my expedition I was joined by my
wife and two kids, who came along to lend moral support.I got started at 2pm and made my first stop
at Greenland, St. Andrew adding American40
and Eurasian41Wigeons, Masked Duck42, Pied-billed
Grebe43, American Coot44
and Antillean-crested Hummingbird45.
The last bird I registered for my Big Day was a Sanderling46 which was seen at Six Men’s Bay at 4:45pm
bringing an end to my first ever First Day Big Day.

The birds I was surprised not to find were the Rose-ringed Parakeet, Peregrine Falcon,
Magnificent Frigatebird, Osprey, Black-bellied Whistling Duck and the Lesser Black Backed Gull, which was a
staple at Oistins Fishing Complex. I
thought I heard a Northern Waterthrust
while at Graeme Hall but could not find it. I did not list it because it is a new bird for
me and I am not too confident in identifying it by ear.

I felt that better planning would have resulted in more
birds and I will try again next year for sixty species. Here is the break down for my first annual
First Day Big Day:

Thursday, 7 January 2016

I started the new year, as I normally do,birding, but this time I decided to try doing a big day. At the end of the day I tallied forty-seven different species. Here are a few of the many images from that day.

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

2015 was a good birding year for the island of Barbados with
a total recorded sighting of over one hundred and fourteen (114) species of
birds. One of the most exciting birds
for that year was an Alpine Swift (Apus melba), which
was seen at Salters, in the central parish of St. George. This represented only the fourth sighting for
the island. Another was Purple Herons (Ardea purpurea), with
two records for 2015, first recorded at The Woodbourne Shorebird Refuge (WSR)
early in the year and later in September in the north of the island. These may
have represented the fourth and fifth records for the island. We also saw a few

This year I recorded my highest species count of one hundred
and five (105) species for a calendar year, since starting my birding in 2013.I missed a few birds here and there but
recorded twelve lifers in the process. Dr.
John Webster, who classified this year as his best since he started birding,
ended the year with 110 species.

Bird of the Year

Bird of the Year

The bird of the year was an easy choice. At different times
of the year any of the above mentioned species may have been candidates for Bird
of the Year (BOY) but after November 5th only one bird was on the
lips of local birders. When quizzed on
their top three birds for 2015, this bird topped the list of all birders asked.
So it is not surprising that the Eurasian Marsh Harrier, first seen by
Dr. John Webster on November 5th in the northern parish of St.
Philip, was for me the Bird of the Year for 2015.

The Mother of all
Big Years

In January 2015 I started to follow the quest of Noah
Strycker, through Audubon’s
Birding without Borders, as he attempted to become the first person to see
5000 species of birds in one calendar year. It was intriguing following his quest which started
in the freezing water of Antarctica to forty one countries; including our
Caribbean neighbour Jamaica. He saw a
whopping total of six thousand and forty-two (6042) different bird species. Now that is what I call a Huge Year and
birding without borders. Congratulations Noah!!See highlights of his year in this short video here.

On to 2016

I am really planning to take it easy in 2016 but I have as a
goal, moving my local lifers count from 126 to 135 species by the end of the
year. My bucket list of birds I am
hoping to see includes Tri-coloured and Western Reef Heron, Purple Gallinule,
Northern Harrier and Wilson’s Plover.I
will like to devote more time birding
for Warblers during their peak periods as I believable we, the local birders, for one reason or another, don't pay that much attention to this area birding. So bye 2015 you were an exceptional year,
on to 2016, what will you have in store for us? Only time will tell.

Saturday, 2 January 2016

I would
describe the last quarter birding as epic. I registered seventy-seven species,
fourteen of which were first for the year, including five lifers.The rains finally came in this quarter and refreshingly
brought to life those wet areas which depend on rain water as its source. Wet areas such as Chancery Lane Swamp, WSR and
Redland Irrigation Ponds came alive but it had little or no effect on the ponds
in the north of the island. The cave
Swamp at North Point and the Hope Pond had zero water for the entire year.

Lifers

Bobolink
(Dolichonyx oryzivorus)

I recorded
five lifers during the last quarter namely Bobolink
(Dolichonyx oryzivorus),Eurasian Wigeon (Anas Penelope), Franklin's
Gull (Leucophaeus pipixcan), and Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) a local
lifer. But the biggest find for the
year, a first for the island seen by Dr. John Webster in November would be the Eurasian
Marsh Harrier(Circus aeruginosus)
affectionately known as Harriette.

Bird of the Quarter

Eurasian
Marsh Harrier(Circus aeruginosus)

My bird of
the quarter and for sure my bird of the year was the Eurasian
Marsh Harrier. This
bird was first seen by Dr. John Webster in the eastern part of the island on
November 5th. It took me just
over a month, December 8th, to see this bird. I saw it in the northern parish of St. Lucy.

The
Blue-winged Teal was the migrant that dominated this quarter with its share
numbers. Flocks tallied between fifty and
one hundred at a few locations.

The exciting
discovery by a local birder of a suspected nest with adults and hatchlings of a
Yellow-crowned Night Heron could represent, if confirmed, the first record of
this species breeding on the island. It was seen in the parish of St. Peter. No doubt this will be closely monitored in the
New Year.

At the close
of this quarter and year my checklist stood at 105, a new personal record. It was indeed a good quarter.